Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity
- Book Review,
by Steven F. Hayward
Amazon.com
Scotch and cigars are making a popular comeback, so perhaps the time is ripe for the 20th century's most famous scotch-drinking and cigar-smoking leader to do the same. In the vein of the best-selling book Lincoln on Leadership, Steven F. Hayward looks at the much-studied Winston Churchill in a way nobody has before. Although Churchill on Leadership is pitched to a business audience, its lessons have a wider resonance. Churchill, of course, is best remembered as a political figure and wartime hero. Anybody who aspires to leadership can profit from this book, whether it's in the boardroom or the Oval Office.
From Library Journal
Strock, an attorney with a long career in public service, aims to provide guidance to those in leadership by distilling lessons from the official conduct of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. The topics covered include Reagan's commitment to a vision, decisiveness, ability to learn from failure, and management techniques such as delegating, holding meetings, and setting priorities. Each chapter contains a summary of the principles covered and supposedly demonstrated by Reagan, the only value in the book, and the author borrows heavily from memoirs by former Reagan aides, appointees, lackeys, and sycophants. The effort to portray Reagan's style as exemplifying sound principles of leadership borders on sanctification and seems far-fetched at best. Neither biography nor history, this book represents a feeble attempt to derive leadership principle from insubstantial sources, a phenomenon of serious concern to executives well documented in John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge's The Witch Doctors (LJ 12/96). Harried executives interested in leadership advice should instead seek out the solid works of Stephen Covey and Peter Drucker, for example, and pass on this lightweight tome. Recommended for presidential libraries and only on demand for smaller public libraries.ADale F. Farris, Groves, TXCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
To satisfy both his loves, Hayward brings together Churchill and business. Surprisingly, it proves to be a happy marriage. Chronicling the events of Churchill's long career to sift out the mix of qualities that enabled his success as a wartime leader, Hayward discovers the very qualities needed by business leaders in today's warlike competitive climate. What are they? In short, a love of history, a love of the English language, the need to take charge and the heart for a good scrap! British reader Stuart Langton reads Churchill's quips and Hayward's narrative with clarity and precision. Both are delivered in a steady rhythm and even, thoughtful pacing. But Churchill is voiced more dramatically, as the "last lion" should be, and it is really his voice in the end that we hear through Langton and Hayward. Let the CEO take note! There's a place again for long, expansive memos. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Analyzing leadership is difficult; its definition is elusive. Writers usually resort to identifying someone they perceive as being an effective leader and then select various attributes the individual possesses, suggesting that others would do well to emulate them. This method has recently been applied to leaders as diverse as Attila the Hun and Mahatma Gandhi. Hayward chooses Winston Churchill, a figure who occupies the continuum somewhere between those two examples. The author is a director at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, a think tank devoted to free enterprise and individual rights, and a frequent contributor to Reason, the magazine dedicated to "free minds and free markets." In selecting Churchill, Hayward provides numerous examples of the statesman's candor and plainspokenness, decisiveness, historical imagination, and ability to balance overview with attention to detail. David Rouse
Review
"Perhaps the finest book on practical leadership ever written."
— Brian Tracy
"Winston Churchill once said, 'We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.' His business acumen, grounded in candor, glows in this uncommon management guide."
— Cathy Madison, Utne Reader
"This book is must reading for today's business leaders and entrepreneurs."
— Fred W. Mackenback, retired president and CEO, The Lincoln Electric Company
"Churchill on Leadership demonstrates that the principles that guided Churchill ably translate to private industry today . . . [I]f you remove Churchill from his political context, he would have the résumé to be among the great business leaders of any age."
— Business Times
Review
"Perhaps the finest book on practical leadership ever written."
? Brian Tracy
"Winston Churchill once said, 'We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.' His business acumen, grounded in candor, glows in this uncommon management guide."
? Cathy Madison, Utne Reader
"This book is must reading for today's business leaders and entrepreneurs."
? Fred W. Mackenback, retired president and CEO, The Lincoln Electric Company
"Churchill on Leadership demonstrates that the principles that guided Churchill ably translate to private industry today . . . [I]f you remove Churchill from his political context, he would have the résumé to be among the great business leaders of any age."
? Business Times
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